From Jay Cross

I picked these comments up from an e-newsletter I subscribe to – they’re from Jay Cross at the Workflow Institute – I thought they were a timely reminder and appropriate for all learning practitioners challenged with the positioning of their roles and the development or implementation of e-Learning.

Computers can make aspects of learning more convenient, timely, and on-target, but they don’t eliminate the need for human intervention. Training professionals and instructional designers must become
involved in workflow learning to keep engineering efficiency from crowding out attention to people’s behavior, emotions, and motivation to learn.

Think of the knowledge you and your fellow training professionals can bring to the new environment of business. You know that …

o Learning is social. Lots of learning takes place informally, between learners. Workers learn more in the coffee room than in the classroom.

o Learning requires much more than exposure to content. People who drop out of computer-only training often do well when computer-mediated lessons are combined with virtual classes, study groups, team exercises, mentors and help desks, off-line events, and online coaches.

o Learning starts from what you already know, provides usable knowledge, involves learning to learn, and addresses a “discipline base” of knowledge.

o Good learning is problem-centered, activates previous experience and knowledge, relies more on demonstration than on telling, requires learners to use their new knowledge or skills to solve problems, and integrates new knowledge into everyday life.

o It’s a rare programmer or process analyst who knows anything at all about communities of practice, learning styles, cognition, situated learning, conditions of learning, multiple intelligences, creating engagement, job aids, performance support, tacit knowledge, ADDIE, or synchronous instruction.

Jay Cross and some other high profile speakers will be at the Workflow Learning Symposium in San Francisco, Calif., October 11-13, 2004 – looks like a great program if you’re over that way.
Jay runs a blog (see our Blogodex or link from here) – shame they don’t have a blog so we could review the sessions from here….. 😦